New Georgia Encyclopedia - Sites & Museumshttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/topics/sites-museums
enNational Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbushttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/national-civil-war-naval-museum-port-columbus
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>The <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8381.jpg" style="float: left;" />National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus, formerly the Confederate Naval Museum, is the only institution in the nation dedicated to telling the little-known <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-chattahoochee-river">maritime story</a> of the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-georgia-overview">Civil War</a> (1861-65). This 40,000-square-foot facility located on the <a href="/articles/geography-environment/chattahoochee-river">Chattahoochee River</a> in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/columbus">Columbus</a> opened in 2001 and features the remains of two original Confederate navy ships, along with full-scale reproductions of parts of three other famous Civil War ships and numerous <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-archaeology">artifacts</a>. Port Columbus is operated as a public-private partnership project between the City of Columbus and the Port Columbus Civil War Naval Center, Inc., a private nonprofit organization. The first phase of the project was funded by nearly $8 million in private local donations.</p>
<p>A <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8380.jpg" style="float: left;" />major feature of Port Columbus is the CSS <i>Jackson</i>, a 225-foot ironclad ship built in the Confederate Navy Shipyard, which is located less than a mile from the current museum. Though under construction for more than two years, the ship was not quite completed when a U.S. Cavalry column under General James Wilson captured Columbus in April 1865. All military and Confederate government property in Columbus was burned, including the shipyard and the CSS <i>Jackson</i>, which was set on fire and left adrift in the Chattahoochee River.</p>
<p>The <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8379.jpg" style="float: right;" />fire persisted for nearly two weeks, until the ship finally burned to the waterline and sank about thirty miles south of Columbus, where it remained for ninety-six years. The <i>Jackson</i> was raised in 1961 and brought back to Columbus, where today it forms the nucleus of the museum. The CSS <i>Chattahoochee</i> also burned at the war's end; it too was recovered and returned in the early 1960s.</p>
<p>In 2009 the museum completed and commissioned a replica of the wooden gunboat <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/uss-water-witch">USS <i> <xref id="h-3774" type="nge_article">Water Witch</xref></i></a>. The ship served as part of the Union <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/union-blockade-and-coastal-occupation-civil-war">naval blockade</a> during the Civil War before its capture by Confederate forces in 1864.</p>
<p>Port <img src="/sites/default/files/m-11180.jpg" style="float: left;" />Columbus is designed to place its visitors inside the stories it tells. Reproduced ships, including the USS <i>Hartford</i>, the USS <i>Monitor</i>, and the ironclad CSS <i>Albemarle</i>, are open so that Civil War naval life can be experienced from the inside. A visitor can hear the ships creaking and the water lapping at their sides; in the <i>Albemarle</i>, visitors enter the ironclad combat "simulator" and witness the U.S. Navy fleet sailing up and sending 455-pound cannonballs bouncing off the casemate in which they stand.</p>
<p>Years of collecting have resulted in an extraordinary array of artifacts on display. The uniform coat worn by Catesby Jones, skipper of the CSS <i>Virginia</i> (popularly known as the "Merrimac"), on the day he fought the USS <i>Monitor</i> in one of naval history's most famous battles is featured, along with weapons, equipment, documents, paintings, and a stunning flag collection.</p>
<p>Special <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8376.jpg" style="float: right;" />events are held year-round at Port Columbus and range from academic symposia to living-history activities in which an original Confederate navy cannon is fired over the river. The museum's largest annual event is "RiverBlast," held in early March on the weekend nearest the anniversary of the facility's opening. Port Columbus also features educational opportunities; a teacher's guide is published, and special tours and programs are available to student groups visiting the museum.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div><div class="field-item odd"><a href="/topics/military" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Military</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-destination field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Destination:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ten Major Civil War Sites in Georgia</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Elmer Lee Bechdoldt, &quot;Museum Report: Port Columbus National Civil War Naval Museum,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Naval History Magazine&lt;/i&gt; (October 2002). </div><div class="field-item odd">Barry L. Brown and Gordon R. Elwell, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/crossroads_of_conflict/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010). </div><div class="field-item even">David Evans, &quot;Everything but the Salt Water,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Civil War Times Illustrated&lt;/i&gt; (October 2001). </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">National Civil War Naval Museum at Port Columbus</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Fri, 17 Feb 2006 17:05:15 +0000bsmith2681 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/national-civil-war-naval-museum-port-columbus#commentsChief Vann Househttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/chief-vann-house
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>The Chief Vann House, built between 1804 and 1806 by the Cherokee leader James Vann, is called the "Showplace of the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/cherokee-indians">Cherokee Nation</a>." <img src="/sites/default/files/m-3830.jpg" style="float: left;" />It is located at the intersection of U.S. Highway 76 and Georgia 225 in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/murray-county">Murray County</a>, on the outskirts of Chatsworth in northwest Georgia.</p>
<p>Vann's father, James Clement, was a Scottish trader who left South Carolina in the 1700s to settle among the Cherokees, and Vann's mother, Ruth Gamn, was a Cherokee. His father founded Spring Place Plantation, on which the Vann House eventually would be built.</p>
<p>Vann, a Cherokee chief, was known to be a well-educated man, though it is <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8874.jpg" style="float: right;" />unknown where he received a formal education. He invited <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/indian-missions">Moravian missionaries</a> to the area to teach young Cherokees, including <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/elias-boudinot-ca-1804-1839">Elias Boudinot</a>, Stand Watie, and <a href="/articles/arts-culture/john-rollin-ridge-1827-1867">John Rollin Ridge</a>, who would become leaders in the Cherokee Nation.</p>
<p>In addition to providing an education to local Cherokees, the <a href="/articles/arts-culture/moravians">Moravians</a> contributed to the building of Vann's two-story brick house. Visitors to the house can inspect the mantels, door jambs, and wainscotings, all of which are original to the house. The doors, known as Christian doors, are of special interest. Their construction features a cross and an open Bible. On one side of the main entrance, which originally faced the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/federal-road">Federal Road</a>, is an elaborately carved stairway—the oldest example of cantilevered construction in Georgia.</p>
<p>The bricks used in the construction of the house came from the red clay located on the Spring Place Plantation property. Handwrought nails and hinges came from Vann's own blacksmith shop. In addition to the blacksmith shop, the 800-acre property around the mansion included 42 <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/slavery-antebellum-georgia">slave</a> cabins, 6 barns, 5 smokehouses, a trading post, more than 1,000 <a href="/articles/business-economy/peaches">peach</a> trees, 147 <a href="/articles/business-economy/apples">apple trees</a>, and a still.</p>
<p>Vann had the opportunity to enjoy his mansion for only a few years; he was fatally shot in 1809 by an unknown assailant. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-8873.jpg" style="float: left;" /><a href="/articles/history-archaeology/joseph-vann-1798-1844">Joseph Vann</a> inherited his father's house and land, and although he was a successful businessman like his father, he was not immune to the discrimination that Cherokees faced. In 1834 Vann and his family were dispossessed of the house and property at Spring Place. The Georgia <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/land-lottery-system">land lottery</a> —an attempt by whites to gain possession of remaining Cherokee lands—included a provision stating that land held by a Cherokee would be forfeited if he broke any <a href="/articles/government-politics/government-and-laws-overview">state law</a>. Vann had hired a white man as overseer of his plantation and, in doing so, had unknowingly violated a law making it illegal for an Indian to employ a white. A fight over who would claim the house resulted in a fire being started on the stairway. Evidence of charred flooring remains in the house to this day.</p>
<p>Although Vann and his family lost their home and property, he later sued for the loss and was awarded $19,605 by the government as compensation.</p>
<p>Through<img src="/sites/default/files/m-8876.jpg" style="float: right;" /> the years, the VannHouse has had seventeen different owners. In 1952 J. E. Bradford, a physician who had purchased it in 1920, sold the house to the <a href="/articles/arts-culture/georgia-historical-commission">Georgia Historical Commission</a>. At the time of its purchase by the commission, the house was in such a state of disrepair that the roof had come off. A restoration project, which took six years to complete, included the repainting of the mansion according to its original color scheme of blue, red, green, and yellow.</p>
<p>Today the Chief Vann House is administered by Georgia's <a href="/articles/geography-environment/georgia-state-parks">Parks, Recreation and Historic Sites</a> division of the Department of Natural Resources.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Durant Ashmore, &quot;An Interpretive Garden Design for the Chief Vann House, Spring Place, Georgia&quot; (master&#039;s thesis, University of Georgia, 1992).</div><div class="field-item odd">David King Gleason, &lt;i&gt;Antebellum Homes of Georgia&lt;/i&gt; (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987).</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Chief Vann House</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Fri, 23 Sep 2005 20:27:01 +0000nwilliamson3939 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/chief-vann-house#commentsGeorgia Guidestoneshttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/georgia-guidestones
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>One of the most intriguing <a href="/articles/science-medicine/granite">granite</a> monuments ever erected stands in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/elbert-county">Elbert County</a>, near the South Carolina border. The Georgia Guidestones dominate the highest elevation in the county, which is located in the northeastern <a href="/articles/geography-environment/piedmont-geographic-region">Piedmont</a> section of the state. Known to some as the American Stonehenge because of their striking resemblance to England's famous monument, the Georgia Guidestones were unveiled on March 22, 1980.</p>
<p>Like ancient Stonehenge, the modern Guidestones serve as a celestial clock of sorts, recording the passage of time through special features. Unlike Stonehenge, however, the Guidestones contain a written message for humanity. The general layouts of the two sites are also different from one other. While Stonehenge is arranged in a circular manner, the Guidestones are positioned in an "X" pattern, with each line of the axis oriented toward specific areas of the moon's annual rotation around the Earth.</p>
<p>The Guidestones' mysterious origins go back to the summer of 1979, when a man calling himself R. C. Christian came to <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/elberton">Elberton</a> in search of both a granite firm to execute his design for a monument and a suitable site for the construction of it. The man admitted that "Christian" was a pseudonym, chosen because it represented his own beliefs and those of the organization that planned and funded the project. To this day, Christian's real name and the true identity of his organization are unknown. Christian claimed that he chose Elbert County because of its abundant supply of granite, the rural nature of its landscape, and its relatively mild climate, and because some of his ancestors had once lived in the region.</p>
<p>Joe H. Fendley Sr., president of the Elberton Granite Finishing Company, was initially shocked when Christian first explained his plan to build a gigantic granite monument inscribed with wisdom for the ages—suggestions or directions that would lead humanity into an "age of reason." Christian also informed Wyatt C. Martin, president of Granite City Bank, of his hope that other conservation-minded groups in the country would later erect even more stones to form an outer ring around the central structure. He told Martin that he wanted the monument to be erected in a rural area, away from crowds and tourists.<img src="/sites/default/files/m-7020.jpg" style="float: right;" /></p>
<p>Meanwhile, Fendley put his laborers to work on the structure, which consisted of four massive blue granite slabs, one center stone (known as the Gnomen stone), and a capstone. When finally completed, the monolithic structure weighed 119 tons and contained 951 cubic feet of granite. The structure also supported more than 4,000 sandblasted characters and letters, each averaging about four inches in height. Christian and Martin selected a five-acre plot in the middle of a cow pasture, approximately seven miles north of Elberton and eight miles south of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/hartwell">Hartwell</a>, with a commanding view to the east and the west, on which to build the monument. The area chosen was in close proximity to what the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/cherokee-indians">Cherokee Indians</a> called "Al-yeh-li A lo-Hee,"—the center of the world. The land on which the Guidestones stand is owned by Elbert County.</p>
<p>The <img src="/sites/default/files/m-2157.jpg" style="float: left;" />inscriptions on the Guidestones are meant for current and future generations. Sandblasted along the square capstone sitting atop the structure is the basic message: "Let these be guidestones to an age of reason," in Babylonian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphics, Sanskrit, and classical Greek. The four granite slabs, each weighing 42,137 pounds and standing more than sixteen feet in height, list ten "guides" for mankind in eight different languages. The languages represented on the four major stones are Arabic, Chinese, English, Hebrew, Hindi, Russian, Spanish, and Swahili. The engraved messages can be subdivided into four major areas: governance and the establishment of a world government, population and reproduction control, the environment and humankind's relationship to nature, and spirituality.</p>
<p>While some of the "guides" are self-explanatory, others are open to discussion and interpretation. The rich variety of interpretations evoked by the Guidestones has likewise caused much controversy and debate to swirl around the hidden or intended meanings of the messages. According to the Guidestones, the following ten principles are offered to ensure humankind's future survival:</p>
<p>1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.</p>
<p>2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.</p>
<p>3. Unite humanity with a living new language.</p>
<p>4. Rule Passion — Faith — Tradition — and all things with tempered reason.</p>
<p>5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.</p>
<p>6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.</p>
<p>7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.</p>
<p>8. Balance personal rights with social duties.</p>
<p>9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.</p>
<p>10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.</p>
<p>Astronomical phenomena are also associated with the Guidestones. The four large upright granite slabs that compose the face of the structure are oriented to the limits of the moon's migration during the course of the year. An eye-level, oblique hole is drilled in the Gnomen stone upward toward the celestial heavens and oriented on Polaris, the North Star. In the middle of the Gnomen stone is a large slot with a hole cut through the granite, orienting the monument with summer and winter solstices. The Guidestones also act as an enormous sundial. Drilled through the capstone is a seven-eighths-inch hole, which allows sunlight to shine on the southern face of the Gnomen stone at noon.</p>
<p>The Elberton Granite Museum, in Elberton, offers an impressive display model of the Guidestones as well as a short film detailing its construction. The museum also provides free informational brochures about the Guidestones and their creation.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Georgia Guidestones</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Fri, 15 Apr 2005 20:03:03 +0000couzts4052 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/georgia-guidestones#commentsChieftains Museum/Major Ridge Homehttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/chieftains-museummajor-ridge-home
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>The mission of the Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/rome">Rome</a> is "to preserve and interpret the heritage <img src="/sites/default/files/m-4255.jpg" style="float: left;" />represented by the Chieftains house and campus." This <a href="/articles/arts-culture/national-historic-landmarks">National Historic Landmark</a> was the home of the prominent early-nineteenth-century Cherokee leader <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/major-ridge-ca-1771-1839">Major Ridge</a> and his family. Thus "its heritage most significantly encompasses the history and traditions of the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/cherokee-indians">Cherokee Indians</a> and the clash of cultures in the southeastern United States that culminated in the tragedy known as the 'Trail of Tears.'"</p>
<p>As the mission statement indicates, the Chieftains Museum has national significance. As leader of the Treaty Party, Major Ridge negotiated and signed the Treaty of New Echota with U.S. officials in December 1835. The treaty turned over all Cherokee lands in the Southeast in return for $5 million and a promise of land in the West. The treaty resulted in the forced <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/cherokee-removal">removal</a> of the Cherokees from the Southeast to Indian Territory in the West during the harsh winter of 1838-39. More than 4,000 Cherokees died on that fateful journey. Branded a traitor by the majority of Cherokees, Major Ridge was later murdered for his role in the Treaty of New Echota.</p>
<p>After the <img src="/sites/default/files/m-4254.jpg" style="float: right;" /><a href="/articles/history-archaeology/war-1812-and-georgia">War of 1812</a> Major Ridge moved his family and slaves to a site on the Oostanaula River near present-day Rome. The original house was a two-story, dogtrot-style log house. The Ridges installed glass windows; added clapboard siding, shutters, and porches; and painted the structure white. The stately home served as the centerpiece of a 280-acre plantation that included <a href="/articles/business-economy/grains-and-corn">corn</a>, vegetable, and <a href="/articles/business-economy/cotton">cotton</a> production, an extensive fruit orchard, and a river ferry business. With George Lavender, Ridge operated a trading post, where Cherokee and white friends and neighbors, including Principal Chief <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/john-ross-1790-1866">John Ross</a>, conducted business.</p>
<p>In the next two decades Cherokee leaders adopted a governmental structure modeled on that of the United States and encouraged the people to pursue European lifestyles and practices. Such accomplishments did not protect them from the implementation of the Indian Removal Bill passed by Congress in 1830, however. In 1832 Georgia held a lottery to give away Cherokee lands, despite the fact that Cherokees occupied them. Ownership of the Ridge plantation fell to white Georgians, although the Ridges remained until 1837.</p>
<p>Subsequent owners of the house made renovations and additions, and the property was divided and sold. The house became known as "Chieftains." In 1928 the American Chatillion Corporation purchased the property and built a <a href="/articles/business-economy/textile-industry">textile mill</a> there. In 1969 the Celanese Fibers Corporation donated the current campus to the Rome Junior Service League, which opened a museum. In 1987 Chieftains Museum incorporated as a separate entity.</p>
<p>In 2002 the museum added "Major Ridge Home" to its name and became an official historic and interpretive site of the National Park Service's Trail of Tears National Historic Trail. This relationship increases public awareness of the site while preserving the museum's integrity as a private nonprofit organization. The commitment of the board of directors and staff to sharing Cherokee culture is symbolized by the 2003 opening of the Grizzard Center for Cherokee Studies on the site.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Don L. Shadburn, &lt;i&gt;Cherokee Planters in Georgia, 1832-1838: Historical Essays on Eleven Counties in the Cherokee Nation of Georgia&lt;/i&gt; (Roswell, Ga.: W. H. Wolfe Associates, 1989). </div><div class="field-item odd">Thurman Wilkins, &lt;i&gt;Cherokee Tragedy: The Ridge Family and the Decimation of a People&lt;/i&gt;, 2d ed., rev. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986). </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Chieftains Museum/Major Ridge Home</div></div></div>Fri, 12 Nov 2004 20:14:32 +0000ataylor-colbert2768 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/chieftains-museummajor-ridge-home#commentsHofwyl-Broadfield Plantationhttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/hofwyl-broadfield-plantation
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Designated a historic site and <a href="/articles/geography-environment/georgia-state-parks">state park</a> in 1979, the Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation is among the last remaining vestiges of nineteenth-century <a href="/articles/business-economy/rice">rice</a> plantations that flourished along the <img src="/sites/default/files/m-4034.jpg" style="float: left;" /><a href="/articles/geography-environment/lower-coastal-plain-and-coastal-islands">Georgia coast</a>.</p>
<p>The plantation dates to 1806, when William Brailsford began acquiring land in the cypress swamps of the <a href="/articles/geography-environment/altamaha-river">Altamaha River</a>. His purchases included a river estate named Broadface, which he renamed Broadfield. Brailsford was later joined by a son-in-law, James M. Troup, and by the time of Troup's death, their holdings had grown to 7,300 acres of land and several houses. Three hundred and fifty-seven <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/slavery-antebellum-georgia">slaves</a> also worked on the plantation.</p>
<p>After the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-georgia-overview">Civil War</a> (1861-65) rice production declined owing to the lack of a slave labor force and damage from hurricanes. Brailsford's descendants eventually converted the property into a dairy, which closed in the early 1940s.</p>
<p>The Georgia Department of Natural Resources manages the 1,268 acres of land and 696 acres of <a href="/articles/geography-environment/tidal-marshes">freshwater marshes</a>. Visitors today can see Hofwyl House, built in the 1850s by Troup's daughter Ophelia and her husband, George Dent, and named after a school Dent attended in Switzerland. The two-story frame house is not elevated, making it unique among low-country homes of the time.</p>
<p>The house remains as Ophelia Troup Dent's granddaughter (also named Ophelia) left it when she died in 1973, willing the property to the state for use for "scientific, historical, educational and aesthetic purposes." Antiques collected over five generations of Brailsford's descendants remain in the house as well as a museum with a model of a working rice plantation and <a href="/articles/arts-culture/film-industry-georgia">film</a> about the life of planters and slaves.</p>
<p>Archaeological excavations were conducted in the early 1990s to learn more about the part of the plantation that was settled earliest. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-4036.jpg" style="float: right;" />Although many of the buildings of Broadfield Plantation no longer exist, their remains can be found just under the surface. Those remains offer important information about earlier occupants of the site and about the operations of an antebellum rice plantation—information that is missing from written records. In addition to fragments of buttons, bottles, pipes, musical instruments, stoneware, and other artifacts, the survey revealed the location of an early slave settlement, which ultimately may help tell the story of how rice plantations differed from other plantation cultures and provided for better preservation of the African culture.</p>
<p>Karen Wood, the author of the archaeological report on the site, concluded that "rice plantation slaves had more freedom than slaves on upland <a href="/articles/business-economy/cotton">cotton</a> plantations; part of this was due to the difference in work organization (the task system was used rather than the gang system) and also because the plantation master spent very little time on the plantation due to the serious threat of <a href="/articles/science-medicine/malaria">malaria</a>."</p>
<p>The Hofwyl-Broadfield historic site is in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/glynn-county">Glynn County</a>, about four miles south of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/darien">Darien</a> and about thirteen miles north of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/brunswick">Brunswick</a>.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-associated-counties field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Associated Counties:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Glynn</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-location field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Location:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Coast, Glynn County, Georgia, United States</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Mildred Nix Huie, &lt;i&gt;Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation, Hopeton-Altama, Elizafield; South Altamaha Delta River Rice Plantations, Glynn County, Georgia&lt;/i&gt; (Sea Island, Ga.: Argyle, 1992).</div><div class="field-item odd">Julia Floyd Smith, &lt;i&gt;Slavery and Rice Culture in Low Country Georgia, 1750-1860&lt;/i&gt; (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1985).</div><div class="field-item even">Karen G. Wood, &lt;i&gt;Archaeology at the Broadfield Plantation, Glynn County, Georgia&lt;/i&gt; (Ellerslie, Ga.: Southern Research, 1998).</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hofwyl-Broadfield Plantation</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Mon, 27 Sep 2004 15:27:20 +0000jcleveland3995 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/hofwyl-broadfield-plantation#commentsRalph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museumhttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ralph-mark-gilbert-civil-rights-museum
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p><a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/savannah">Savannah</a>'s <img src="/sites/default/files/m-3141.jpg" style="float: right;" />modern <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-rights-movement">civil rights movement</a> was charted by local African Americans and adhered to the principles of nonviolent protest. The Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum is named in honor of the father of that movement. The museum site was originally constructed in 1914 as an African American bank, with Lucius Williams as president. Robert Pharrow, an African American contractor from <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/atlanta">Atlanta</a>, built the structure. It later served as the Guaranty Insurance Company, with Walter Sanford Scott, a local black millionaire, as president, and as the Savannah office of the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/national-association-advancement-colored-people-naacp">National Association for the Advancement of Colored People</a> (NAACP).</p>
<p>Gilbert came to Savannah as pastor of the historic <a href="/articles/arts-culture/first-african-baptist-church">First African Baptist Church</a> on Franklin Square, <img src="/sites/default/files/m-3144.jpg" style="float: left;" />which he served from 1939 to 1956. A graduate of the University of Michigan, Gilbert was nationally known as an orator, tenor, and religious playwright. Gilbert, with members of neighboring churches and the Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, organized Savannah's Greenbrier Children's Center. In the late 1940s, with financial help from twenty-four people, both blacks and whites, he also developed the West Broad Street YMCA in the McKelvey-Powell Building, which had served as a USO facility during <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/world-war-ii-georgia">World War II</a> (1941-45).</p>
<p>Gilbert reorganized the Savannah branch of the NAACP and was its president from 1942 to 1950. He was the organizer, convener, and first president of the Georgia Conference of the NAACP. Under his leadership, more than forty NAACP chapters were organized by 1950 in Georgia.</p>
<p>Gilbert served as president of the Citizens Democratic Club and challenged the Georgia all-white primary in Savannah by launching a citywide <a href="/articles/government-politics/black-suffrage-twentieth-century">black voter registration drive</a>, in which hundreds of blacks were registered. This bold move led to the election of a reform-minded white mayor and city council. As a result, in 1947 Savannah became one of the first cities in the South to hire black policemen, along with several other black city employees.</p>
<p><a href="/articles/history-archaeology/w-w-law-1923-2002">W. W. Law</a>, who became president of the Savannah NAACP in 1950, almost single-handedly led a movement to secure funds for a museum to commemorate Savannah's civil rights struggle. In 1993 he sought $1 million in funding from <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/chatham-county">Chatham County</a>'s one-cent special local-option sales tax to build the museum. He chose the old Wage Earners Savings and Loan Bank on <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/martin-luther-king-jr-streets-georgia">Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard</a> (formerly West Broad Street) as the museum's site. West Broad Street was the hub of black businesses, medical doctors, mortuaries, various other professionals, jazz music, and other entertainment. The bank was also near the Bolton Street Baptist Church, where the first civil rights mass meetings were held in the late 1950s and into the 1960s. As a historic preservationist, Law envisioned the Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum as a catalyst for reviving the economic and cultural vitality of old West Broad Street.</p>
<p>The Savannah Yamacraw Chapter of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History (a nonprofit organization), with Law as president, assumed operation of the museum in 1993. Elorie S. Gilbert, Ralph Mark Gilbert's widow, donated his letters and papers to the museum.</p>
<p>The museum chronicles the civil rights struggle of Georgia's oldest African American community. The three floors feature historic photographic and interactive exhibits, including an NAACP organizational exhibit and <img src="/sites/default/files/m-3140.jpg" style="float: left;" />a fiber-optic map of eighty-seven significant civil rights sites and events. A bronze bust of Gilbert highlights the exhibits on the museum's first floor, which also features a recreation of the Azalea Room of Levy's Department Store, where blacks could buy clothing but could not eat in the restaurant. The mezzanine houses a theater, which is a facsimile of an African American church sanctuary, where Law and other leaders reflect on Savannah's civil rights struggle. A visual montage of West Broad Street's people and its commerce gives visitors a glimpse of its history. The second floor features lecture halls, classrooms, and a computer room. It also has a video/reading room and an African American book collection for children.</p>
<p>The vision of Law and Gilbert came to fruition in the museum. Thousands of visitors from around the world tour the museum, where people of all races can share a glimpse of the struggle for African American civil rights.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject">civil rights</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-associated-counties field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Associated Counties:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Chatham</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-location field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Location:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">The Coast, Chatham County, Savannah, Georgia, United States</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Charles J. Elmore, &lt;i&gt;First Bryan, 1788-2001: The Oldest Continuous Black Baptist Church in America&lt;/i&gt; (Savannah, Ga.: First Bryan Baptist Church, 2002). </div><div class="field-item odd">Charles J. Elmore, &lt;i&gt;Savannah, Georgia&lt;/i&gt;, Black America series (Charleston, S.C.: Arcadia, 2001). </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ralph Mark Gilbert Civil Rights Museum</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Mon, 26 Apr 2004 20:58:32 +0000celmore2689 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/ralph-mark-gilbert-civil-rights-museum#comments32.083541 -81.099834Time Capsuleshttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/time-capsules
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>Time capsules, sealed containers storing artifacts of the contemporary culture for retrieval in future decades or even millennia, first captured the imagination of the American public in 1936, when <a href="/articles/education/thornwell-jacobs-1877-1956">Thornwell Jacobs</a>, president of <a href="/articles/education/oglethorpe-university">Oglethorpe University</a> in Atlanta, suggested the idea in a <i>Scientific American</i> magazine article.</p>
<p>Georgia, <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1747.jpg" style="float: right;" />like all states, has numerous time capsules. They range from the very elaborate—a swimming-pool-sized chamber containing thousands of objects—to sealed cardboard boxes preserving family memorabilia. Although time capsules are traditionally buried, often in ceremonies that borrow from funeral ritual, indoor capsules are also popular, because they do not require weather- and decay-resistant containers.</p>
<p>The best known of Georgia's time capsules is Jacobs's <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/crypt-civilization">Crypt of Civilization</a> at Oglethorpe University in Atlanta. The crypt, a converted indoor swimming pool, represents the "first successful attempt to bury a record of this culture for any future inhabitants or visitors to the planet Earth" (<i>Guinness Book of World Records</i>, 1990). Sealed in 1940, the crypt's stainless-steel door is scheduled to open in the year 8113.</p>
<p>Indoor time capsules are popular as school projects to encourage class reunions. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1748.jpg" style="float: left;" />Holcomb Bridge Middle School in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/alpharetta">Alpharetta</a> is the home of the Powaqqatsi Time Capsule (1992-2012). The name is taken from the Hopi Native American word for "life in transformation." The container is a safe, and the contents have a theme of social conflict. Enclosed among other items is the Georgia <a href="/articles/government-politics/state-flags-georgia">flag</a> in use at the time the capsule was sealed; the flag's design features the controversial Confederate Stars and Bars. In Acworth the Frey Elementary School Time Capsule (1997-2012) commemorates the first year of a new building. The container is a pine hutch donated by the local Wal-Mart.</p>
<p>Among the capsule burials that borrow from funeral imagery is the <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/oglethorpe-county">Oglethorpe County</a> Time Capsule (1993-2093) in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/lexington">Lexington</a>, honoring local veterans, which is marked with a tombstone. Another civic project, the City of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/winder">Winder</a> Time Capsule (1993-2093), featured the burial of a sealed plastic water pipe in front of the town's Public Safety Building. The Mount Nebo Baptist Church Time Capsule (2000-2100) in Atlanta is a buried child's coffin.</p>
<p>Diverse groups in Georgia have organized time capsule projects. They include the Atlanta Typographical Union Local No. 48 Time Capsule (1985-2060) at the Southern Labor Archives of <a href="/articles/education/georgia-state-university">Georgia State University</a>, the Ladies Garden Club Time Capsule (1991-2091) on the <a href="/articles/education/university-georgia">University of Georgia</a> campus, the DeKalb Historical Society Time Capsule (1997-2022) at the old courthouse in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/decatur">Decatur</a>, the Marietta Golden K Kiwanis Club Culture Capsule (1999-2100) at the East Cobb Senior Center, and the Macon Water Authority Time Capsule (2001-2051) at the Rocky Creek Plant.</p>
<p>There are also many personal and family time capsules in Georgia. The Good Luck Time Capsule (2001-2101) is a PVC pipe sealed for the descendants of Stephen and Janice Freniere and is buried at their home in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/gainesville">Gainesville</a>. The Stephen Edward Gubelman Time Capsule (1990-2006) and the Laura Elizabeth Gubelman Time Capsule (1993-2010) are simple cardboard boxes sealed by Stephen Gubelman in Marietta for his children, to be opened on their twenty-first birthdays.</p>
<p>A few Georgia specimens have already been unsealed. The Inter-Disciplinary Studies Time Capsule, for example, was buried in 1975 at the former DeKalb Community College South Campus. Consisting of a child's coffin holding school artifacts, the capsule was unearthed twenty-five years later, as directed. Some of the items were later resealed with new artifacts in the Georgia Perimeter College Time Capsule (2001-2025), which is a wall safe at Decatur campus of Georgia State University Perimeter College. In 1990, on the fiftieth anniversary of the crypt's sealing, the International Time Capsule Society was formed at Oglethorpe University. It studies the variety of time capsule projects worldwide.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">James T. Black, &quot;The Time Capsule Man,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Southern Living&lt;/i&gt; (Georgia ed.), December 2001.</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Time Capsules</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Tue, 27 Jan 2004 19:42:45 +0000phudson3894 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/time-capsules#commentsCrypt of Civilizationhttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/crypt-civilization
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>The Crypt of Civilization, a multimillennial <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/time-capsules">time capsule</a>, is a chamber that was sealed behind a stainless steel door in 1940 at <a href="/articles/education/oglethorpe-university">Oglethorpe University</a> in <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/atlanta">Atlanta</a>. The crypt is the "first successful attempt to bury a record of this culture for any future inhabitants or visitors to the planet Earth," according to the <i>Guinness Book of <i>World <i>Records</i> </i> </i> (1990).</p>
<h3>Origins of the Crypt</h3>
<p>Oglethorpe University president <a href="/articles/education/thornwell-jacobs-1877-1956">Thornwell Jacobs</a> (1877-1956), in an article in the November 1936 <i>Scientific American</i> magazine, <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1744.jpg" style="float: right;" />claimed to be the first to conceive the idea of consciously preserving artifacts for posterity by placing them in a sealed repository. While engaged in research and inspired by the openings of the Egyptian pyramids in the 1920s, Jacobs was struck by the relative lack of information on ancient civilizations. He later wrote of a unique plan to preserve a "running story" of life and customs, to show the ways of life in 1936 as well as the accumulated knowledge of humankind up until that time.</p>
<p>Jacobs proposed the distant date of A.D. 8113 for the opening of the crypt. He calculated this date from the first fixed date in history, 4241 B.C., when the Egyptian calendar was established. Exactly 6,177 years had passed between 4241 B.C. and A.D. 1936. Jacobs projected the same period of time forward, arriving at 8113 for the crypt's opening, so that historians and archaeologists of the distant future could obtain a clear picture of the midpoint of history.</p>
<p>The Crypt of Civilization idea fascinated the American public and soon was imitated. The Westinghouse Company, which was planning a promotional event for the 1939 New York World's Fair, began a project to bury a sealed seven-foot-long torpedo-shaped vessel made of alloyed metal, which was not to be opened for 5,000 years. George Pendray of Westinghouse called the project a <i>time capsule</i>, and the English language gained a new term almost overnight.</p>
<h3>Construction and Preparation of the Crypt</h3>
<p>The Oglethorpe crypt is half underground, on the lower level of a Gothic <a href="/articles/science-medicine/granite">granite</a> building, <img src="/sites/default/files/m-3735.jpg" style="float: right;" />Phoebe Hearst Hall, in a room that had held a swimming pool with a waterproof foundation. Remodeling of the chamber took place from 1937 to 1940. Construction included raising the floor with concrete and lining the walls with enamel plates embedded in pitch. The crypt is twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and ten feet high. It lies over a two-foot stone floor and under a stone roof seven feet thick.</p>
<p>The National Bureau of Standards in Washington, D.C., provided technical advice for construction of the crypt and the storage of items in it. The bureau recommended that many items be stored in stainless steel receptacles lined with glass and filled with nitrogen to prevent aging. It also approved Jacobs's plan to seal the chamber with a door panel of stainless steel.</p>
<p>Jacobs appointed Thomas Kimmwood Peters to supervise construction of the crypt and to serve as its archivist. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1745.jpg" style="float: left;" />Peters, an inventor and photographer, invented the first microfilm camera using 35 mm film to photograph documents. From 1937 to 1940 Peters and a staff of student assistants conducted an ambitious microfilming project to place cellulose acetate film in airtight receptacles. As backup in case the acetate did not survive, Peters prepared duplicate metal film, thin as paper, to place in the crypt. Peters secured for time storage numerous items, all of which were donated. The hundreds of contributors were as diverse as King Gustav V of Sweden and the Eastman Kodak Company.</p>
<p>In April 1937 Jacobs gave a nationwide radiocast on NBC in New York City, in which he explained the crypt as an "archaeological duty" of his generation. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1746.jpg" style="float: right;" />He also recorded his "Message to the Generations of 8113 A.D." In May 1938, in an outdoor ceremony on the Oglethorpe University campus, David Sarnoff of the Radio Corporation of America dedicated the crypt's stainless steel door, which was to be sealed two years later. Paramount newsreels filmed the occasion. Peters included these segments in <i>The Stream of Knowledge</i> (1938), a film about the crypt.</p>
<h3>Filling and Sealing the Crypt</h3>
<p>Jacobs envisioned the crypt as comprehensive and aimed for a whole "museum" not only of accumulated formal knowledge from more than 6,000 years but also of 1930s popular culture. Inside the crypt are stainless steel canisters with microfilms of many classic works of <a href="/articles/arts-culture/literature-overview">literature</a>, including the Bible, the Koran, Homer's <i>Iliad</i>, and Dante's <i>Inferno</i>. Producer David O. Selznik donated an original copy of the script for the <a href="/articles/arts-culture/film-industry-georgia">movie</a> <i><a href="/articles/arts-culture/gone-wind-film">Gone With the Wind</a></i>. There are approximately 640,000 pages of microfilm from more than 800 works.</p>
<p>Peters used similar methods to capture and store still photographs and motion pictures. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1748.jpg" style="float: right;" />Voice recordings of Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Benito Mussolini, and Franklin Roosevelt are among items placed in the crypt, as well as sound clips of the cartoon character Popeye the Sailor and a champion <a href="/articles/business-economy/hogs">hog</a> caller. To be sure the openers of the crypt could see and hear these records, Peters placed electric microreaders and projectors in the vault. In the event that electricity is not in use in 8113, the crypt holds a generator operated by a windmill to drive the apparatus, as well as a seven-power magnifier to read the microfilm records by hand. In the front of the sealed chamber is the "language integrator," a machine to teach those who open the crypt how to speak English.</p>
<p>The inventory of the crypt includes artifacts ranging from the useful (a typewriter, a radio, a cash register, and an adding machine) to the curious (dental floss, plastic toys of Donald Duck and the Lone Ranger, the contents of a woman's purse, and a specially sealed bottle of Budweiser beer). The chamber of the crypt when finished resembled a cell of an Egyptian pyramid, with artifacts on the shelves and the floor.</p>
<p>On May 25, 1940, Jacobs and Peters sealed the crypt in a solemn ceremony. They welded the door shut and fused onto it a plaque with an elaborate message written by Jacobs. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1747.jpg" style="float: right;" />Representing the federal government on the occasion was Postmaster General James A. Farley. The last items placed in the vault were steel press plates of the <i>Atlanta Journal</i>, in which reports of <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/world-war-ii-georgia">World War II</a> (1941-45) predominated, as well as a voice recording by Jacobs. Addressing the people of 8113, he said, "The world is engaged in burying our civilization forever, and here in this crypt we leave it to you."</p>
<p>After the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945 the crypt's mission appeared even more unlikely. National media organizations continued to visit the crypt every decade, butby 1970 it had been virtually forgotten. In 1990, on the fiftieth anniversary of the crypt's sealing, the International Time Capsule Society was formed at Oglethorpe University. The society studies the variety of time capsule projects worldwide. The crypt with its stainless steel door regained prominence during the millennium observances from 1999 to 2001 and was featured on national <a href="/articles/arts-culture/television-broadcasting">television</a> and was covered by national newspapers.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-associated-counties field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Associated Counties:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fulton</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-location field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Location:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Metropolitan Atlanta, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, United States</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Paul Stephen Hudson, &quot;The &#039;Archaeological Duty&#039; of Thornwell Jacobs: The Oglethorpe-Atlanta Crypt of Civilization Time Capsule,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Georgia Historical Quarterly&lt;/i&gt; 75 (spring 1991).</div><div class="field-item odd">Thornwell Jacobs, &quot;Today—Tomorrow: Archeology in A.D. 8113,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Scientific American&lt;/i&gt;, November 1936.</div><div class="field-item even">T. K. Peters, &lt;i&gt;The Story of the Crypt of Civilization&lt;/i&gt; ([Atlanta]: Oglethorpe University Press, 1940).</div><div class="field-item odd">Don Troop, &quot;Time Capsules Resurrect a Sometimes Forgettable Past,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Chronicle of Higher Education&lt;/i&gt; 54, no. 39 (2008).</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Crypt of Civilization</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Tue, 01 Apr 2003 21:04:47 +0000phudson4357 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/crypt-civilization#comments33.748995 -84.387982Cycloramahttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cyclorama
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"> <p>"Cyclorama" is the name given to the huge, <a href="/articles/arts-culture/paintings-eighteenth-and-nineteenth-centuries-overview">late-nineteenth-century painting</a> depicting the Civil War battle fought July 22, 1864, east of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/atlanta">Atlanta</a>. Housed in Atlanta's <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/grant-park">Grant Park</a> <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1970.jpg" style="float: left;" />and owned by the city, the Cyclorama is a national tourist attraction and cultural treasure. It is one of only two cycloramas in the United States, and at 42 feet tall and 358 feet in circumference, it is the largest painting in the country.</p>
<p>Cycloramic murals—building-sized paintings hung circularly for viewing from the inside—were a European innovation of the late nineteenth century. Frenchman Paul Philippoteaux supervised the painting of a cyclorama of the Battle of Gettysburg, which came to this country in 1884 and remains a prominent attraction at the Gettysburg National Military Park.</p>
<p>German artists also produced cycloramas, such as those depicting battles of the Franco-Prussian War. A number of them were recruited to Americain 1883 by William Wehner of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who ran the American Panorama Company, dedicated to cycloramic art. Thirteen artists painted <i>The Battle of Missionary Ridge</i> in 1883-84 and then turned to the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/atlanta-campaign">Battle of Atlanta</a> as the subject for their next mural. The company's choice of subject was influenced by one patron, the Republican Illinois senator John A. Logan, who ran unsuccessfully for vice president in 1884 and was rumored to be a candidate for the presidential nomination in 1888. A former Union general, Logan commanded the Fifteenth Corps in the Battle of Atlanta and assumed command of the Army of the Tennessee after the death of General James B. McPherson.</p>
<p>In the summer of 1885 the Milwaukee artists came to Atlanta for field study. Twenty years after the war, histories of the battle were in print, but the artists received most of the technical advice from Union and <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/confederate-veteran-organizations">Confederate veterans</a>. Assisting was Theodore Davis, wartime illustrator for <i>Harper's Weekly</i>, who had followed General William T. Sherman's armies. With trench lines outside Atlanta still extant, the artists fixed as the point of reference a site just inside Union lines at the Georgia Railroad, running eastward from the city. From a forty-foot tower they studied the terrain and sketched layouts. After several months on site, they returned to their Milwaukee studio, where, supervised by F. W. Heine and August Lohr, the artists—all specialists in landscapes, figures, and animals—completed the painting.</p>
<p>At its debut in Detroit in February 1887, the work was billed as "Logan's Great Battle" (although the senator had died three months before). The heavy canvases were draped on wooden frames, which were moved and reassembled at Minneapolis, Minnesota, and then Indianapolis, Indiana, where the Cyclorama opened in May 1888. Wehner sold the painting to an Indianapolis art exhibit company, which in turn sold it in 1890 to Paul Atkinson of <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/madison">Madison</a>, Georgia.</p>
<p>Atkinson, already the owner of the <i>Missionary Ridge</i> cyclorama, sent the Atlanta painting to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and brought the former to Atlanta, exhibiting it in a circular building on Edgewood Avenue until February 1892. <i>Missionary Ridge</i> then traveled to Nashville, Tennessee, where it was later destroyed in a hurricane; in its place, <i>The Battle of Atlanta</i> opened in Atlanta on February 22, 1892. Resale to various owners led to its purchase at the Edgewood Avenue exhibition hall by Atlanta businessman George V. Gress, who donated the painting to the city in March 1898 after providing it with housing in Grant Park. Grant Park is a public park established in 1883 and named for Atlantan <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/lemuel-grant-1817-1893">Lemuel P. Grant</a>, the donor of the park land, who as a Confederate engineer had surveyed for the fortifications around Atlanta.</p>
<p>The painting takes in a wide sweep of the area: the skyline of Atlanta, Kennesaw Mountain, <a href="/articles/geography-environment/stone-mountain">Stone Mountain</a>, and the smoke of a cavalry fight at <a href="/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/decatur">Decatur</a>. Details of the battle are as if the viewer stood just inside the Fifteenth Corpslines at about 4:30 p.m. on July 22. <img src="/sites/default/files/m-1971.jpg" style="float: right;" />Near the Troup Hurt House, a two-story, red-brick building (destroyed during the war and placed erroneously by the artists too near the railroad), Confederates have broken through the Union lines and are resisting a Union counterattack. Farther off is Sherman's headquarters at the house owned by Hurt's brother Augustus, on the site of which is now the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/carter-center">Carter Center</a>. There Sherman is about to receive the ambulance carrying General McPherson's body. A prominent figure is the man who commissioned the painting, General John "Blackjack" Logan, galloping heroically to the battlefront ahead of reinforcements that will restore his lines. The painting also shows more distant fighting on other parts of the battlefield, especially Confederate attacks on the hill held by General Mortimer Leggett (an area now bisected by <a href="/articles/business-economy/interstate-highway-system">Interstate 20</a> at Moreland Avenue).</p>
<p>The Cyclorama has been housed at Grant Park since the 1890s. In 1921 a new building, designed by Atlanta architect John Francis Downing, took in the painting and, six years later, the locomotive <i>Texas</i>, famous in the <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/andrews-raid">Andrews Raid</a> of 1862. In 1934-36, funded by the Works Progress Administration, artists Weis Snell, Joseph Llorens, and Wilbur Kurtz fashioned plaster figures for a diorama as foreground for the painting. Set on a flooring of red clay, the shrubbery, cannon, track, and 128 soldiers (twenty inches to fifty inches tall, to fit in perspective with the scale of the painting), give the painting more realism and extend it thirty feet toward the viewing platform. After Clark Gable visited the Cyclorama in December 1939 while in Atlanta for the premiere of <a href="/articles/arts-culture/gone-wind-film"><i>Gone With the Wind</i></a>, Mayor <a href="/articles/government-politics/william-b-hartsfield-1890-1971">William B. Hartsfield</a> had Snell make a figure of a Union corpse with a face painted to resemble Gable's Rhett Butler.</p>
<p>Deterioration of the painting and water damage led to an $11 million restoration of the Cyclorama in 1979-81. Under the supervision of Gustav Berger, the canvas was cleaned and treated, and the paint colors were restored. In the diorama the clay was replaced with a fiberglass and plastic flooring by Joseph Hurt (a descendant of Troup Hurt), and the plaster figures were reset. The building was remodeled and equipped with a 184-seat, tiered viewing platform, which rotates slowly as recorded narrative describes the painting. The upstairs museum was also updated, with <a href="/articles/history-archaeology/civil-war-archaeology">artifacts</a> given mostly by a former Cyclorama employee. The new Cyclorama reopened in June 1982 and continues to draw visitors from around the world.</p>
</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-subcategories field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Categories:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/topics/sites-museums" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Sites &amp; Museums</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-associated-counties field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Associated Counties:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Fulton</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-destination field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Destination:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Ten Major Civil War Sites in Georgia</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-location field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Location:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Metropolitan Atlanta, Fulton County, Atlanta, Georgia, United States</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-further-reading field-type-text-long field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Further Reading:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">&lt;i&gt;The Battle of Atlanta: The Cyclorama, Grant Park, Atlanta, Georgia&lt;/i&gt; (Kansas City, Mo.: Terrell Publishing, 1982-1991?; distributed by Thomas Warren Enterprises).</div><div class="field-item odd">Barry L. Brown and Gordon R. Elwell, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ugapress.org/index.php/books/crossroads_of_conflict/&quot;&gt;&lt;i&gt;Crossroads of Conflict: A Guide to Civil War Sites in Georgia&lt;/i&gt;&lt;/a&gt; (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010).</div><div class="field-item even">Chip Carter, &quot;Atlanta&#039;s Restored Cyclorama,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Civil War Times Illustrated&lt;/i&gt;, January-February 1991, 18-22.</div><div class="field-item odd">Harold Holzer and Mark E. Neely Jr., &lt;i&gt;Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory: The Civil War in Art&lt;/i&gt; (New York: Orion Books, 1993), esp. ch. 5, &quot;The Theater of the War: Cycloramas and Panoramic Art.&quot;</div><div class="field-item even">Alma Hill Jamison, &quot;The Cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Atlanta Historical Bulletin&lt;/i&gt; 10 (July 1937): 58-75.</div><div class="field-item odd">Wilbur G. Kurtz, &quot;At the Troup Hurt House,&quot; &lt;i&gt;Atlanta Constitution Magazine&lt;/i&gt;, January 25, 1931.</div><div class="field-item even">Wilbur G. Kurtz, &quot;The Story of the Cyclorama Painting,&quot; in &lt;i&gt;The Atlanta Cyclorama of the Battle of Atlanta&lt;/i&gt; (Atlanta: City of Atlanta, 1954), 24-28. </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-index-title field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Index Title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Cyclorama</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-italicize-title field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Italicize title:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">no</div></div></div>Tue, 11 Mar 2003 00:39:39 +0000sdavis4335 at http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.orghttp://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/cyclorama#comments33.748995 -84.387982